A friend once told me that whenever he heard a story where the storyteller was the hero, he would generally discount the level of derring-do by about 30%. It struck me as a fairly sensible rule-of-thumb, and I’ve since found it quite useful, particularly when the drinks are flowing freely and the tales grow tall. I highly recommend applying the same anecdotal mathematics to all of you… in the future. But not now, my friends… not now. Because everything I’m about to tell you is the stone. cold. truth. You may choose to believe it or not as you wish: for only God and the 405 northbound can stand as my witness.
Between the smoldering refineries of Carson and the megalopolis surrounding LAX there is a place they call Torrance, a vast, unknowable labyrinth of suburbs, strip malls and apartment complexes. Through the heart of this strange land runs a freeway called the 405: twelve lanes of some of the densest, most maddening traffic in the world. Surrounded almost entirely by concrete sound walls, those on the freeway have little clue as to what might lay beyond. It was just before noon and I was heading northbound for LA when I saw it: a small strip of fence right next to the northbound lanes: the Yukon Avenue undercrossing… I found myself instantly determined to make it mine.
I knew from the start it wasn’t going to be easy: the next exit wasn’t for another mile and a half, and there was no telling what sort of serpentine hell might await me on the surface streets. They don’t call it “Torrance” for nothing. But a piece of fence like that… well, that’s one of those things a freewayblogger lives for.
In war there are three kinds of engagements: skirmishes, battles, and slaughters. And as any soldier lucky enough to survive will attest, when a battle is going to become a slaughter, you know it from the start, and the Artesia exit from the northbound 405 was no exception.
The moment I got on the offramp I knew it was a mistake: instantly I was forced back under the freeway, and then to a massive intersection with no U-turns allowed. I decided to go straight, hoping to seize my first opportunity to turn around, but was thwarted at every turn. Feinting right, then left, I found myself on roads from which there were no exits, boulevards as hopelessly divided as the country I was trying to save. Within minutes I was lost, cursing my lot and my damnable hubris. I could’ve just kept going, safe on the 405… but no, I just had to find that fence.
As had many a soldier before me, I tried to imagine happier times to come, grandchildren on my knee. “Were there really U-Turns, Grandpa?” they’d ask… “Were there really dead-end streets?” “Yes,” I’d tell them, “there were U-Turns and dead-ends. There was even one point where I had to cut through a gas-station to make a right…” “Wow…” they’d sigh.
After what seemed like minutes of driving, and probably was, I saw an onramp back to the 405, the large green sign beckoning like the sirens of yore. Call it weakness, or maybe just the instinct to survive, but with one simple turn of the wheel I gave up my quest for Yukon Avenue and found myself safe again on the 405 heading north.
It seemed impossible, but somehow the streets of Torrance had dragged me even further south than I’d imagined. Again the soundwall broke to my right, exposing the stark, maddening linkage of the fence girding the Yukon Avenue undercrossing. So close I could almost touch it…
For the next mile and a half I tried to banish it from my mind. Choose your battles… I told myself, try again some other day… But when the Artesia exit again reared it’s ugly head, something took hold of me and I cranked the wheel to the right. Again I found myself sucked down into the vortex of Torrance.
Whether it was luck, insanity, or some divine guiding light, when I reached the first large intersection I did the unthinkable: I turned right, heading even further north of the Yukon. Immediately I saw a spur road cutting off to the right and back under the freeway, intersecting with a road known only as Redondo Beach Blvd. Inspired more by madness than method I made another right and three blocks later there it was: the shining path of Yukon Avenue.
I drove down the avenue slowly, as if in a dream, coming to only in time to size up the embankment next to the undercrossing. It was as perfect as I’d imagined it to be: twenty or thirty feet of mild, sandy slope was all that stood between the sidewalk and the fence. The nearest parking was about a hundred feet away, and after parking I shut off the engine and collapsed against the wheel. Some thirteen or fourteen minutes had past since I first saw that fence, but believe me my friends, in the heat of the struggle it seemed more like nineteen or twenty.
Steeling myself for this last, most crucial part of the battle, I walked to the back of my Prius, pulled out an “Impeach” sign and a couple of short bungee cords, and murmured this, the Freewayblogger’s Prayer:
I shall take this cardboard
And place it against the fence.
I shall make sure it is straight,
its message clear.
No shrubbery will impede its visage.
Behind it I will stretch these bungee cords I hold.
I will stretch them tightly, so that they may secure
the cardboard to the fence…
And with one final glance to the heavens, I folded the cardboard, walked a hundred feet or so down the sidewalk, and scrambled up the embankment to Glory.
“Did you really do it Grandpa?” my grandchildren will ask, “Did you really put the cardboard against the fence? Did you really stretch the bungee cords behind it?”
“Yes, I did…” I’ll tell them,“Yes I did.”
“Tell us again Grandpa!” they’ll squeal, “Tell us about the bungees!”
“Now now…” I’ll say. “I think we’ve all had enough excitement for one night…”
For a moment of course, I’ll consider telling them the rest of the story, but then think better of it. There are some things that even the most garrulous of storytellers will keep to themselves… those untold secrets that glimmer in the eyes of the ancient. But once they’re off to bed, I’ll return to my chair and settle back down with my tea and my pipe, and shamelessly relive in my mind the rest of the tale. How I made my way back down the embankment and walked back to my car. I’ll sigh as I recall the youth in my step, the casual ease with which I found my way back to the freeway, and the masterful, split-second timing with which I took a picture of the sign as I drove past.
So that’s my story: how I put an “Impeach” sign up on some fencing by the Yukon Avenue undercrossing next to the 405 in Torrance. You’re free to believe it or not as you wish: such are the uncertainties of internet narrative and the price we pay for the casual mendacity so sadly characteristic of the times in which we live. But for those of you who still have heart - who still believe in things like grit, determination and daring - I offer you this post-script.
For that was not the only sign I put up that day my friends. In fact it was only the beginning. Emboldened by my initial triumph I drove on into the very heart of Los Angeles where I faced frontage roads, overpasses, cul-de-sacs and fences. Forging on recklessly, relentlessly… moving like a man possessed… I went on to put nine more signs up over or next to freeways. And then… then… I kind of forget, but I think I got a sandwich or something.